The New party -For a Social Monarchy or a Social Republic? |

The announcement on 3 July 2025 that Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn were co-leaders of a proposed new left party was met with enthusiasm. Around 70,000 people signed up within days. Last week Carla Robert’s article ‘Still waiting for Jeremy’⁽¹⁾ described the process of setting up the new left party. She wrote, “Factional differences in the Corbyn movement have been fought out in secret and then leaked to the bourgeois press. Both sides show not the least understanding of the transparency, democracy and programme that our class urgently needs”.

I think the key here is in Carla’s recognition of “both sides”. What are these two sides all about? In any ‘Cloak and Dagger’ party it is not easy to find out because of the lack of transparency and democracy. The key question, however, between the sides, as Carla says, is programme. We have no information on programme from the reported and disputed meeting. Therefore we have to make a hypothesis about the two sides from the nature of the crisis of democracy facing the country and the crisis of Labourism.

The crisis of democracy suggests that if these two sides were to stack up against each other in a consistently democratic way, then one would stand for the continuation of Labourism outside the Labour Party and the other for its replacement by democratic republicanism. One side would stand for the social monarchy and the other for the social republic. One side would oppose the Union and the other would defend the Union and seek to maintain the United Kingdom. As far as we know, none of this was discussed at the disputed meeting on 3 July. Instead the two sides fought over the provisional leadership and the timetable for the launch.

Of course, nobody can reasonably expect ‘democracy’ in setting up a provisional leadership. It depended on who was invited and who turned up at the key meeting. One side wanted Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana as co-leaders and the other side wanted Jeremy as leader with Zara as deputy. So in the absence of democracy, the two sides fought it out. It was resolved by direct action rather than consensus. 

The two sides seem to disagree over the launch between the slow coaches and the speed merchants. Jeremy Corbyn was accused of going too slow. The other side, according to Pogrund in the Sunday Times, “share a sense of frustration that Corbyn has not been decisive enough since his election victory as an independent in July last year”. Carla Roberts reports, “the ‘Get a move on’ faction now also seems to include Andrew Murray” connected to the Morning Star. 

Speed is not simply about tactics or election timetables. The issue is whether the movement is programme-ready. Has there been sufficient and wide spread debate about the draft programme before the founding conference debates and votes? For the Labourism side, the programme is already understood and represented in the 2017 and 2019 Manifestos. It can be simply adopted with minor amendments. There is no reason why the founding conference cannot be held next week or next month. 

For any republican side, proposing a different strategy and programme requires new thinking and re-evaluation. It needs a much longer lead in time for discussion not least in the trade union movement. None of this prevents local organisations being created or political work being carried out. It simply means the founding conference would have clear choices between a Labour programme and a Republican programme, with the implications fully understood. 

Kingdom United

Despite the urgency of the Labour side for a speedy launch conference, Jeremy Corbyn has been cautious. At a recent Collective meeting, he told us of the problem he saw. How could the many and varied local organisations be welded into a national party? Nobody seems to have taken his question seriously. Yet it is a real problem that gets in the way of unity and progress.  

We might assume that the word ‘national’ is not contentious in itself. Yet in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, it is a matter of dispute. At least with Reform UK we know what country is being talked about. It is the one called “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. If the new left party aims to govern this unruly Kingdom, under the collapsing constitution of the Crown-In-Parliament, it seems reasonable to consider what the Irish, Scottish and Welsh left think about this plan. 

English chauvinists think ‘England’ and ‘Britain’ are interchangeable. Nobody thinks it odd that there is a UK Labour Party and Scottish and Welsh Labour Parties but no English Labour Party. England is not really a nation but a place divided into cities and regions not least London. So in the crisis of democracy in England, we have an upturn or spread of local parties in Liverpool, Southport, the Black Country, Southport, Camden, Leicester and Huddersfield etc. with strong local identities but no national unity.

The most basic question to be addressed is the attitude of the new left party to the different nations that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is a fundamental question about the relationship between the Crown and the people of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It confronts the issue of the constitution, political power and the basic laws of the state. 

Labourism does not consider any of these issues worthy of consideration. These are not matters any trade union has to think about. They are, after all, democratic questions. The essence of ‘Economism’ is to ignore or marginalise democratic questions as irrelevant to, or a diversion from, the struggle for socialism. If the struggle for a democratic republic has no significance to the working class then ‘socialism’ becomes like magic dust to sprinkle over political questions. 

Collective

Whilst the ‘two sides’ have been shy about their programme(s), there has been some discussion in Collective that brought together about sixty pro-party organisations of varying size. Before the public declaration of the new party on 3 July Collective worked on an open appeal letter to Jeremy Corbyn. It was called “It’s Time: A New Party for the Many”. On the evening before the letter was to be sent, we were informed that the two sides had formed an organising Group. It was agreed by the Collective leadership not to publish the appeal letter to Jeremy Corbyn. 

However, part of the letter contained some programmatic demands. The RLEF believed that these should be published in the interests of transparency and political clarification. We requested publication to be made available as part of the process of preparing for a new party. The letter called for “a new political force” – one rooted in the following principles:

• Public service, not private profit: An end to privatisation. Public ownership of energy, water, transport, housing and care – run democratically and for the common good. Protect the NHS as a publicly funded service, free at the point of use. Insourcing of local services. Dignity for all who rely on and deliver public services. 
• Equality and social justice: A living wage for all, real trade union rights, secure housing for all and a massive redistribution of wealth from the few to the many. A democratically run economy built around people and workplaces, not corporations.
• A socialist Green New Deal: Climate justice inseparable from economic justice. A green transition led by workers and communities, with public investment in housing, transport, energy and sustainable jobs. No one left behind.
• Anti-racism and social liberation: Standing against all forms of oppression – from structural racism and xenophobia to misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and ableism. Solidarity with migrants. Refuge and justice for all.
• Internationalism and peace: We reject endless war, arms profiteering and imperial aggression. Whether in Palestine, Ukraine or elsewhere, we stand with those resisting occupation and genocide. The billions spent on weapons should be used to heal, not harm – with munitions factories turned over to socially useful production.
• Democracy from below: Community-led politics. A written constitution and bill of rights to enshrine economic and social rights. The right to self-determination. Power must be devolved to where people live and struggle – not hoarded in Whitehall or corporate boardrooms.
• Local leadership, national strength: We stand with independent socialist councillors across the country – rooted in and accountable to their communities, speaking the truth and refusing to administer cuts. These are the seeds of a new politics. They must be nurtured and connected to a wider movement for national transformation.

Amendments

In the discussions that led to the formulation of these points, the RLEF made two attempts to amend the section on “Democracy from below”. The original Collective draft included the demand for Proportional Representation. The RLEF proposed the first amendment to delete all and substitute following;

“All authority in the state is vested in the sovereign people of England with a written constitution setting out democratic, economic and social rights. England will have its own parliament located in the middle of the country. It will be elected annually by proportional representation with MPs accountable, subject to recall and paid the average income of the citizens. The people in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will be free to determine their own constitutional arrangements independently from England”.

The RLEF amendment was rejected, not because it was necessarily opposed, but because it was too long and detailed for this appeal. (That argument was accepted). However, the issue we raised of self-determination (in relation to Ireland, Scotland and Wales) was now recognised. 

The RLEF then proposed a second amendment to add 

“A democratic republic with power vested in the people”. The section would now read; “Democracy from below: Community-led politics. A democratic republic with power vested in the people. A written constitution and bill of rights to enshrine economic and social rights. The right to self-determination. Power must be devolved to where people live and struggle – not hoarded in Whitehall or corporate boardrooms”. 

This second amendment was also rejected but on grounds that it would not be possible to secure agreement from Collective’s supporting organisations given the tight deadline one day before the publication on 13 June.  

The RLEF made clear to Collective that without this demand for a democratic republic we would not sign our support for the appeal on grounds of principle and class interest. It does not deal with the executive power of the Crown and the continuation of hereditary monarchy or the case for a democratic state and, therefore limits itself to reforming the UK’s social and constitutional monarchy. 

Socialist Labour Party

The ideological and programmatic basis of Socialist Labourism is in a British Road to Socialism, articulated by Labour left reformism and the more ‘sensible’ Trotskyists. It is built on a division between a minimum and maximum programme. The minimum or immediate programme (used for example in election manifestos) supports the loyalist-unionist constitution and the defence and extension of the 1945 social monarchy or welfare state. 

The Socialist Labour maximum programme stands for full socialism or complete nationalisation as represented in the 1918 Labour Party clause IV. Socialist Labour does not demand a democratic republic in its minimum or immediate programme. The abolition of the monarchy is an implied term of the maximum programme. 

The takeover by Blair’s New Labour in the 1990s spawned many Socialist Labour variations – from Scargill’s Socialist Labour, the Socialist Alliance, Respect, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition and Left Unity. Between 2015 and 2019 these politics became mass politics when Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party. The Manifestos of 2017 and 2019 aimed to restore the 1945 social monarchy updated with a green New Deal.

Conclusion

Now the intention to set up a new party of the left has received mass support we need to consider what programme it should organise around. Carla Roberts gathers some evidence of two ‘sides’ in the friction between Corbyn and Sultana. It is unclear whether these are simply different factions jockeying for leadership positions or whether they reflect deeper divisions over programme. The battle yet to come is between Labourism, based on the 2017 and 2019 Labour Manifestos, and Republicanism around Tony Benn’s 1992 republican Commonwealth Bill. This will raise fundamental issues about the relationship of England, Northern Ireland Scotland and Wales. The growing crisis of democracy will force the left to make hard choices between the Social Monarchy and a Social Republic. 

Notes

(1) Weekly Worker 10 July 2025 issue 1546